The shot that killed RFK was supposedly fired from behind his right ear, from an inch and a half away. There were powder burns around the wound. But all wounds were inflicted with a .22 calibre pistol, in sofar as anyone can tell. Sirhan Sirhan was in front of RFK, at least 3 feet away.
It therefore appears to me that either Sirhan Sirhan was a member of a conspiracy -- which no one has ever alleged -- or there must be a mistake of some kind. There cannot have been two assassins operating independently of each other, using the same weapon -- the most improbable of all assassination weapons, a .22 -- by pure coincidence, in the same place, at the same time, in front of 250 witnesses and dozens of photographers. If it was planned, this isn't the way anyone would plan to do it. What happens if one assassin misses Bobby and shoots the other assassin right between the eyes?
Instead of an intelligent attempt to explain how this happened, what we get is:
- Sirhan was innocent
- Sirhan was a patsy
- Sirhan was framed
- Sirhan was a Manchurian candidate (this theory, by far the most interesting, has the advantage of admitting that Sirhan did it, but fails to provide a culprit, a discernable motive, or even a satisfactory explanation of how the bullet hole -- complete with powder burns -- got into the back of Bobby's head)
- Sirhan was hypnotized (ask a hypnotist if he thinks this is possible)
etc., etc., etc., all more or less without proof.
Sirhan was diagnosed as a schizophrenic.
The JFK assassination is not much better. That the CIA overthrows governments and kills presidents has been well-known for many years. For example, on early November 1, 1963, President Kennedy gave his final approval to a CIA plot to overthrow the President of South Viet Nam, Ngo Dinh Diem, as a result of which both Diem and his brother were both killed, on November 3, followed by 10 years of political chaos in Viet Nam. Kennedy was killed 19 days later. Many people, including myself, considered the Kennedy assassination poetic justice for overthrowing and killing the President of South Viet Nam. The question is whether the CIA would overthrow and murder a President of the United States. To believe so, is to have a total misunderstanding of Kennedy the man: Kennedy the Don Quijote, the great idealist about to transform America. Ha!
If the CIA wanted to kill Kennedy it would arrange for him to have a plane crash. That way, nothing can go wrong, and if anything does go wrong, the newspapers just say, "The Presidential jet developed mechanical trouble today but the pilots were able to land safely".
That the anti-Castro Cubans had a motive to hate Kennedy is obvious. So did many Viet Namese. But nobody accuses the Viet Namese of shooting Kennedy.
Anyone who believes that Castro overthrew the government of the second-richest country in Latin America, a heavily-armed, modern country with a population of 10 million people, two-thirds as large as South Viet Nam (the main island is 766 miles long), with a rag-tag outfit of 1500 guys armed with light weapons in the mountains, is a fool.
The American State Department put Castro in power by enforcing an arms and ammunition blockade against the Batista government (including military training aircraft which Batista had paid for, but which were never delivered and never refunded). This blockade was enforced all over Central America, in violation of international law and "treaties and assurances" (to borrow a phrase), in the belief that Castro was a "Robin Hood". Castro was a Communist revolutionary known to the police all over Latin America since the 1950s (Mexico, Guatamala, Colombia). Then, when they had esconced him in power, they had another brilliant idea: we'll over throw Castro with 1500 guys on a beach! The original plan called for 750 guys near Trinidad, a town with an air strip, near the Escambray mountains, in a day time assault. This was called off by Kennedy because American involvement was too obvious. He gave the CIA four days to come up with another plan, so they had another stroke of genius: 1200 guys, in a nighttime amphibious assault, a tactic which was only successful twice during WWII! The invaders were unfamiliar with that part of the island and the assault boats hit coral reefs (which the CIA had mistaken for seaweed), sinking two boats and losing much heavy equipment. It then turned out that the Bay of Pigs was 80 miles from the Escambray mountains, and surrounded by impenetrable swamp! Kennedy then completed the fiasco by stabbing the invaders in the back and calling off all air support. The last radio message received from the invaders said, "We have nothing left to fight with. How can you people do this to us, our people, our country? Over and out".
And this is the President that was going to "get us out of Viet Nam"? I think this is the way we got INTO Viet Nam. AND Irak. This is the way Americans ALWAYS do things: incompetence, interference and betrayal.
One of the excuses for overthrowing Ngo Dinh Diem was "nepotism", i.e., that he placed his relatives in power. JFK did the same thing. If he had any integrity, why did he make his brother Attorney General of the United States, when he, the brother, had never even practiced law?
More later.
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Related topics:
A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy by Thomas Reeves
Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag by Armando Valladares
American Grotesque: An Account of the Clay Shaw - Jim Garrison Kennedy Assassination Trial in New Orleans by James Kirkwood
An Act of Faith: The Execution of Martin Luther King by William Pepper
An Unfinished Life: John Kennedy by Robert Dallek
Antecedentes y Secretos del 9 de Abril [Prior Events and Secrets of April 9] by Alberto Niño
A Racial Crime: James Earl Ray and the Murder of Martin Luther King by Mel Ayton
Assassination Science: Exerts Speak Out on the Death of JFK by James H Fetzer
Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story by Peter Wyden
Bay of Pigs by Victor Andres Triay
Before and After Hinckley: Evaluating Insanity Defense Reform by Henry J Steadman et al
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot
Case Closed by Gerald Posner
Castro el Desleal [Castro the Backstabber] by Serge Raffy (originally written in French as "Castro l'Infidèle")
Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Viet Nam by Seth Jacobs
Conspiracy of One: The Definitive Book on the Kennedy Assassination by Jim Moore
Cuba y su Presidio Político [Cuba and its Political Prison] by Esteban M. Beruvides
Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs by Grayston N. Lynch
Deep Politics And The Death of JFK by Peter Dale Scott
El Bogotazo. Memorias del Olvido [The Bogotá Coup. Forgotten Memories] by Arturo Alape
El Binomio Castro Revolución by [Castro's Double-Edged Revolution] José Ignacio Rasco
False Witness: The Real Story of Jim Garrison's Investigation and Oliver Stone's Film by Patricia Lambert
Fidel Castro y el Gatillo Alegre. Sus Años Universitarios [F.C. the Trigger-Happy: His University Years] by Henrique Ros
JFK First Day Evidence: Stored Away for 30 Years in an Old Briefcase, New Evidence is Now Revealed by Former Dallas Police Crime Lab Detective R.W. by Gary Savage
Historia Oculta de los Crímenes de Fidel Castro [Hidden History of F.C.'s Crimes] by Ramón Conte
I Done My Duty: The Complete Story of the Assassination of President McKinley by Jeffery W. Seibert
In Love with Night: The American Romance with Robert Kennedy by Ronald Steele
JFK: The Case for Conspiracy by Robert Groden (DVD)
John F. Kennedy: The Man and the Myth by Victor Lasky
Los crímenes impunes de Fidel Castro [The Unpunished Crimes of F.C.] by Esteban M. Beruvides
Lone Crazed Gunman? by James R. Duffy
Killing the Dream by Gerald Posner
Kennedy without Tears: The Man Beneath the Myth by Tom Wicker
Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now and What We Didn’t Know Then by James H. Fetzer
Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising by Katheleen Hall Jamieson
President Kennedy: Profile of Power by Richard Reeves
Questions of Controversy by Mel Ayton
Questions of Conspiracy by Mel Ayton
RFK: The Man Who Would Be President by Ralph de Toledano
RFK Must Die by Shane O’Sullivan
Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi
Red Star Over Cuba by Nathaniel Weyl
Right or Wrong, God Judge Me by John Wilkes Booth
Robert F. Kennedy: The Myth and the Man by Victor Lasky
Senatorial Privilege by Leo Damore
Sins of the Father by Ronald Kessler
The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersch
The JFK Assassination: Dispelling the Myth by Mel Ayton
The Kennedys and Cuba: The Declassified Documentary History by Mark. J. White
The Kennedy Men by Nellie Bly
The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK by John Hellman
The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy: An Investigation of Motive, Means and Opportunity by Dan E. Moldea
The Perfect Assassin by Jerry Springer
The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by David Kaiser
The Forgotten Terrorist: Sirhan Sirhan and the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy by Mel Ayton
We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts by Timothy S. Good (changing and conflicting eye-witness reports of the same event)
With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit by Dale K. Meyers
Who Killed Bobby? The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy by Shane O’Sullivan
http://www.therealcuba.com